In our golden era of event’s our audiences are spoilt for choice.
So in a saturated market, the challenge for us all is to stand out from the crowd.
Each event must be different.
Your Events Identity
You and I know that any event should offer something out of the norm, something elevated from everyday life.
And also – each event must stand out from other events, in that each event must be distinct from each other.
One way to achieve this, is to have a distinct personality for your event. An identity that your audience can identify with. Your Event Brand Personality
Brand personality is a set of human like characteristics that are attributed to a brand, providing something which an audience can relate to.
This is important as a ‘brand personality helps in easing communication with the customers. A customer can relate to the traits that s/he possess with the personality traits that a brand has. Thus, an emotional connection is generally created amongst the brand and the customer. And this Brand Personality creates a unique identity’.
If your event was a person, who would it be?
Many events have often been based around the personality of a founder.
Studieshave shown that brands that exhibit familiar human characteristics are more likely to connect with their target audience. This gives brands a significant advantage by setting themselves apart from the competition, and developing a relationship with the people brands are trying to connect with. Simply put, personality is an important dimension of brand equity because, just like a human personality, it is both differentiating and enduring”.
A Brand Personality Model
A common model that is referenced is Jennifer Aaker’s 5 brand personality dimensions, which aims to personify brands with a set of characteristics. It is used to determine the personality of a brand by classifying it into 5 core dimensions.
There are a number of ways to create a brand personality, but what is useful with these types of models, is that it helps brand owners understand the perceptions and attitudes people have towards their brand. It enables them to differentiate themselves, and gives them a competitive edge.
An Event Brand Model
Given that the characteristics described in Aker’s model are not always applicable to specific contexts, such as different industries and genres, researchers have created other model’s that reference Aker’s approach, but can be applied in different context, such as the event world.
How can you use this?
Our Event Brand Model
In my work in Experience Design, we have recognised the value of creating distinct personalities for events, or for a particular event day (e.g. a theme round), or even a specific sub-brand within your portfolio of events.
We use 5 layers of which we can dial up or dial down on each spectrum.
You can play around with these elements, to turn them up or down, depending on how you wish your event to be perceived.
So building your own event personality is important, possible, and valuable.
We can see these different event personalities within each genre, which allow these events to create their own identify and stand apart from their peers.
For example – Rugby Events from around the world have their own distinct personalities
Do you know who you are?
Decide how functional or disruptive your event may be, is emotionally evocative? Is your event something people can interact with socially, or is it more introverted, more individual? Is it an event to actively or passively engage with? What kind of status does your event’s personality have?
It is very important to know what you want to be as an event. It is also very important to understand how people see your event, as a whole, and across dimensions such as these.
Don’t forget the reverse halo effect! As event owners we often (and should) approach sponsors that are brands we want to be associated with. We pitch the value of a ‘halo effect’ of our event onto their brand, but of course the opposite is also very true, and valuable. The perception of your event, the personality of your event, is often influenced by the brands you are associated with.
Being clear on how you are seen by your audience is therefore critical, and then, being sure of the best way to be seen, will determine how popular you are.
If you need some help with this, let me know!